Senators Strike Early Shorthanded, Blow Out Bruins In Boston

The Ottawa Senators (2-0-0) came into TD Garden and blew away the Boston Bruins (2-2-0), winning 4-1.

The Bruins were felled by a 4-0 hole, a deficit which the Senators racked up just over 25 minutes into the game.

Jeremy Swayman made 20 saves in the defeat, but you couldn't pin a thing on him tonight.

Linus Ullmark started for the Senators and made 10 saves through the first two periods. However, he left the game after two periods due to an undisclosed injury. Ullmark still received the win.

Samuel Ersson entered and made 8 saves in mop-up duty.

Tim Stutzle's pair of goals led the way for the Senators.

James Hagens scored his second of the year, and first Bruins goal in TD Garden on Ersson early in the third. 

The Game, Sequentially:

Early on, the game felt sloppy, but relatively even. One big early chance went Boston's way. Morgan Geekie got a breakaway, but he hit the post. 

Shortly thereafter, the Bruins received their first power play of the game.

It couldn't have gone any worse than it did. It remained almost entirely lifeless at the start the year. JJ Peterka got demoted to the second unit, with Elias Lindholm getting promoted.

Sloppy passes and risky plays began the advantage. Then, David Pastrnak tried a risky, mostly-blind drop pass. Michael Amadio stole it, and broke for a 2-on-1 the other way.

Tim Stutzle buried the shorthanded goal. Later, Stutzle buried what amounted to a second shortie on the same penalty kill, scoring on a 2-on-1 seconds after the power play expired.

Disaster for Boston. From that moment, the Bruins failed to reset. The first period gave Ottawa an extended 1:42 of 5-on-3 power play time, but Boston's kill came up massive, getting the necessary kills.

With something like momentum at their back, the Bruins could use the first intermission to reset.

The second period provided a major opportunity for the Bruins to reassert themselves.

Just 5:22 into the second period, the Senators led 4-0, scoring twice on their first three shots of the period. 

First, James Hagens had time and space to dump it in from the neutral zone with his defenders changing. Instead, he tried to control the zone entry. The Senators stole it, and sprung Drake Batherson for a breakaway.

Batherson made a couple of nice dekes and slipped it right past Swayman just 66 seconds into the period.

Ottawa then utterly dominated possession, winning every battle for loose pucks. Ultimately, after a flurry of passes around the zone, Amadio buried one from point-blank range, 4-0 Senators.

Sturm called his timeout and ripped into his players. At that point, the Bruins trailed 4-0 and had only five shots on goal. Only three of those shots came at 5-on-5.

It's hard to paint an uglier picture for the Bruins than that.

After the timeout, Boston evened things out a bit. Sturm completely changed the lineup, with the bottom six becoming:

James Hagens - Matthew Poitras - Marat Khusnutdinov

Tanner Jeannot - Fraser Minten - Mark Kastelic

The top six did not stay consistent the rest of the game. Sturm took out the blender, and left it on high for the rest of the game.

For a strong portion of the third period, it became:

Morgan Geekie - Pavel Zacha - David Pastrnak

Casey Mittelstadt - Elias Lindholm - JJ Peterka

Sturm wanted to find something, anything that worked. The bottom six looked quite cohesive after the switches.

The top six? Still were finding chemistry.

Still, that bottom six worked real hard and played strong.

Hagens redeemed himself for his earlier mistake. First, he blocked a heavy shot in his own zone, and helped get the puck deep.

Ersson came out to play it, but mishandled it. Hagens pounced, stealing it below the goal line. As Ersson slid out to get back in position, Hagens banked it right off Ersson and in for the goal.

Boston smelt some blood in the water, and pushed for a quick second goal that never came. Nikita Zadorov had a good opportunity with a one-timer, but Ersson made the save.

In the end, the Bruins played out the final minutes in front of a half-empty TD Garden, defeated by their divisional rivals in an early-season matchup.

Next up for Boston, a Thursday home game against the struggling Utah Mammoth.

.